Private eyes help Houston firms navigate Mexico mayhem

Updated 9:55 pm, Monday, November 5, 2012

An employee of a private intelligence company works in the control room in Houston.

An employee of a private intelligence company works in the control room in Houston.

Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

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Private eyes help Houston firms navigate Mexico mayhem

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Despite regions of lawlessness, where politicians and police can't be trusted, Houston companies continue to do billions of dollars of business in Mexico - everything from manufacturing computers to exploring for energy.

But as they make decisions about where it's safe to operate, which highways are less likely to have trucks hijacked, and how to avoid kidnappings and extortions, companies need eyes and ears on the ground to guide them.

A steady stream of private intelligence firms, several with Houston ties, are answering that call by providing information that businesses are hard pressed to get but need more than ever.

"They'll say, 'I need to know who is operating outside my gates,' " said Gary Hale, owner of Grupo Savant, a firm with offices here and in Washington, D.C.

"They do not know what is going on, the security situation, the modus operandi used by criminal organizations," said Hale, who retired in 2010 as intelligence chief for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Houston Division.

Threats vary throughout the nation, depending on who the criminals are and what business is being done. A lot is on the line - $31 billion in trade in 2011 between the Houston region and Mexico, according to the Greater Houston Partnership.

A contentious, nerve-wracking 150-mile stretch of northeastern Mexican highway slices through the nation's latest oil plays and includes operations by Houston energy giants such as Halliburton and Schlumberger. While convenient for reaching the U.S. border, the roadway cuts through a dicey drug-cartel turf war that has spun off an array of criminality and makes passage risky in the day and far worse at night.

Devil's backbone

Across Mexico, a new toll road zips through a rugged region that includes the Devil's Backbone - a remote area of cliffs, mountains and forests - and connects the storied state of Sinaloa with South Texas.

"Mexico, in spite of a long season of security and violence stories, is attracting investment," said Antonio Garza, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

"Why? Because people putting money in a country read beyond the headlines; they know that other emerging markets face similar challenges," said Garza, general counsel in Mexico City for the White and Case law firm.

In some cases, American companies want to determine whether they need security to guard truckloads of merchandise headed to Texas or a seaport, not so different from guarding stage-coaches in the Old West.

This 'tax' pays off

A source in the intelligence field told the Houston Chronicle it is not uncommon for firms to set up meetings with local criminals, on behalf of legitimate businesses, to agree to a "tax" to avoid merchandise being robbed, destroyed or delayed.

"If you call the army, they aren't going to come for you," he said clients are told about the military, which often functions as a national police force. "There are some organizations you can work with and some you can't."

Foreign companies operating in Mexico have had their trucks torched after refusing to pay extortion fees, and there can be a number of different players to contend with, depending on the region.

Intelligence reports sometimes evaluate the safety of specific cities and can include a laundry list of the mayhem: a human head left on the side of the road in the city of Pachuca; armed men burning a home in Acapulco; gunmen in the industrial city of Monterrey killing a waitress and a bar owner.

Stratfor, an Austin-based intelligence firm, offers an array of services, including a daily Mexican violence report as well as a quarterly summary of the developments.

"We can do a deep dive on a location and provide a detailed analysis of what is going on," said Scott Stewart, vice president for analysis at Stratfor and a former U.S. State Department agent. "We can get very granular, if that is what the customer desires."

Intelligence firms draw information from trusted government employees, law enforcement, the military, citizens, and at times, criminal informants.

"We try to hit as many sources as possible and then try to make sense of the picture of this diverse information," Stewart said.

'Pragmatic' security

Marisol Espinosa, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, declined to share details about its operations in Mexico or the use of private intelligence.

"Halliburton's top priority is the safety and security of all its personnel across the globe," she said. "To that end, Halliburton has detailed, pragmatic and regionalized security and risk measures in place to prevent injuries and to protect personnel at all our work sites."

"They are clearly investing in these private intelligence firms to get information on where it is safe and where it is not," he said.

John Kewell, a British military veteran and vice president of security consulting services for Control Risks, a global company with Houston offices, notes that security threats exist all over the world, but the situation is heightened in Mexico.

"You can't go into it blind," he said. "You need to be informed from the onset."